Editor’s note: Each Sunday throughout the season, reporter Lindsay H. Jones will help readers get to know the players on a more personal level.

Genetics never should have let Jason Hunter become a professional football player, let alone a hulking outside linebacker.

Hunter’s mother, Terri, is just 4-feet-11, and his father, James, is a couple inches shy of 6-feet. But Hunter hit his growth spurt midway through high school and has been playing football since.

The Broncos snatched Hunter, a Charlotte, N.C., native who played four years at Appalachian State, off the free-agent wire midway through training camp. He is now starting alongside Robert Ayers at outside linebacker, his first experience as a stand-up linebacker. Hunter played defensive end in college at Appalachian State and his first four years in the NFL in Green Bay and Detroit.

Q: Tell me a little bit about your childhood.

A: My dad was in the Army (25 years in the 82nd Airborne Division) and was stationed at Fort Bragg, in Fayetteville, N.C. You could say I was an Army brat. We lived in Germany three years, and then we lived here in Colorado, in Colorado Springs, for a year. Then we were at Fort Bragg for 15 or 16 years. He was in the (Persian) Gulf War and went to Korea a bunch of times. But the most notable was the Gulf War.

Q: What was it like for you when your dad was overseas?

A: I was 10 or 11, in fourth and fifth grade. It was kind of scary, especially when you’re looking at the news and all the stuff that’s going on over there. You can’t communicate with him, so you don’t know how he’s doing. Once we finally got the chance to communicate and we knew that he was all right, that was better.

Q: How did you end up playing at Appalachian State?

A: I wasn’t really recruited much because I played only two years of high school football, so colleges didn’t really know about me. Teams didn’t really want to take a chance on me without knowing too much about me. But Appalachian State called me, and we went up for a visit, and that was it.

Q: You were a senior in 2005 for Appalachian State’s first championship team (in Division I-AA). What was that experience like?

A: We were the first college team in the state of North Carolina to win a (national) championship. That was a great feeling for the city, for the state, and it really helped jumpstart the program. After that they were winning back-to-back championships and getting the publicity.

Q: In the last month you have experienced the low of being released to the excitement of starting for a new team. Can you describe how these last few weeks have been for you?

A: It’s definitely been a roller coaster, going from playing in Detroit with the 4-3 to Denver with the 3-4, but it’s been a fun experience. It’s been a lot of learning and still a lot of challenges in front of me.

Q: What has been the toughest part of switching to the 3-4 defense?

A: Just learning a new position, learning what’s expected of me from that position. Knowing what my role is on the team, executing that role.

Q: Who has helped you with the transition?

A: When we were playing Jacksonville, Elvis (Dumervil) was coming up to me on the sideline and giving me pointers. Mario Haggan, he’s been helping me. Really all of the guys, D.J. (Williams), Robert Ayers, even the backup guys have been giving me advice to help me out and settle into my position.

Q: What sort of things are you interested in outside of football? What would you like to do with your life when your career is over?

A: I want to be on the Pro Bowlers Association tour. I want to go fly-fishing. I want to go hunting. I want to do fun stuff. I want to go sky diving. I want to go and be adventurous and do the kind of stuff that I can’t do now because of my career. When I’m done playing, I want to do all that stuff.

More in Sports

Broncos general manager John Elway was reminded of the nice weather, of the fun memories he had some 13 miles west in Palo Alto in college and of course the ones he experienced here in Santa Clara back in 2016.

A tangled mess at Coors Field unraveled early Thursday afternoon as rookie right-hander Jeff Hoffman craned his neck to see home run after home run leave the yard. Before the end, it devolved into a dilemma.